Programming can be a very frustrating thing to do at any level.
There are a few things that have kept me going:
- Be excited when little things work
- Realize that from little things big things are built
- Everybody is still learning (even Knuth)
- Focus on being the best programmer you can be, rather than as good as someone else
- Realize that holy/language wars just bring upset and the best thing to do is to fix the problem than complain
- Don't be intimidated by 500+ page books (almost everybody finds them frustrating)
- Remember your past difficulties when helping new programmers
Please extend this list.
MSW: In fact I love 500+ pages technical books :)
- Enjoy bugs. Remember, they are there to be fixed by you - be excited when you fix that thing.
- Enjoy interaction with your users: They will show you ways to use your program you've never thought about before.
- Expect credits for minimal, ridiculous changes you do, but don't for abstract flexible frameworks: You get cheered on for what they see.
- The smile on the faces of your users when you implement their wishes quickly
- Humor. You'll often laugh hard when you read code you wrote years ago - especially if you are now more fluent in that programming language
DKF - It's books that are over a thousand pages that are intimidating. Especially when used on cow-orkers... ;^)
- Sometimes failure isn't really failure. When you learn from a project it can in a way be considered a success.
- Keep reaching for the sky. If you only do coding that is easy you won't make the gains that you may seek.
[Economic absurdities ...]
The most dangerous moment is when you have a vision and say to yourself, "Hey, I could code that!" The next thing you know, no one has seen you for a week and you've perpetrated yet another Tcl object system. -- WHD